Aggressive Abortion Stance Central to Democratic Platform

While the Democratic Party re-invited God to its convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, it has continued to ignore the sixth of His Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:13). Center-stage throughout the convention was the emphatic declaration that the Democratic Party “strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman's right to make decisions regarding her pregnancy, including a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay.”

In fact, pro-life leaders are saying that this year's platform ranks as the most aggressively pro-abortion platform in the party's history. “What we’re seeing is the abortion lobby taking over an entire political party,” Elizabeth Graham, director of Texas Right to Life, told LifeSiteNews.com. “The Democratic National Committee’s revised platform calls for unrestricted abortion on demand, at any time during pregnancy, and on the taxpayer’s dime. That’s been the abortion lobby’s goal all along.”

While 72 percent of Americans say they oppose tax-funded abortion, the Democrats are moving in the opposite direction. While for years the party platform called for abortion to be safe, legal, and “rare,” that last qualifier was removed from this year's abortion plank. As the rest of the nation puzzles over such practical concerns as how to re-ignite a faltering economy, the Democrats have fixated on issues that much the nation finds morally objectionable. The Washington Examiner noted that the Democratic Party platform “mentions abortion more times (four) than unemployment (three). It mentions 'gay'/'LGBT' more times (six) than debt (five).”

A healthy segment of Democrats have expressed strong opposition to their party's aggressive abortion stance, led, as noted byThe New American, by a group called Democrats for Life of America. The group's executive director, Kristen Day, promised that “for the good of the Democratic Party, we will continue to advocate that the platform language should reflect the true diversity of views within the Democratic Party. Our message is simple: If you are pro-life and a Democrat, you can make a difference, thus the case for recognition. Inclusion can make a critical difference in this fall’s election.”

LifeSite noted that in August some 25,000 people signed a petition drawn up by Democrats for Life asking the party to change the platform. But while representatives from that group were given a few moments to make their case to the party's platform committee in early August, it has been clear for some time that the party's ear continues to be caught by the far more politically connected Planned Parenthood, whose president, Cecile Richards, was given star billing at the Democratic convention.

During her address to the convention Richards confirmed that she and her group were “proud … to support the re-election of President Barack Obama.” The President has spent the past four years paying handsomely for the support of the nation's premier abortion provider, helping Planned Parenthood mount legal challenges against states that have defunded its abortion business, and even producing a video praising and promoting the abortion giant. Playing to the emotions of the middle-aged, single females who make up a significant percentage of the president's most ardent supporters, Richards shouted that “President Obama brought women to this dance and we’re staying with him all the way through November!”

On September 4, reported LifeSiteNews, Planned Parenthood went so far as to host a raucous (but thinly attended) rally at the convention, which included an appearance by “Pillamina,” a woman dressed as a giant box of birth control pills, who declared that “we’re all here because our awesome president made me available at no co-pay” — referring to Obama's contraceptive mandate requiring employers to provide health insurance that offers free access to birth control — including drugs that induce abortion. Between speeches, event organizers wearing t-shirts with the slogan “2012: Yes We Plan” walked around distributing condoms emblazoned with the tag line: “Protect yourself from Romney & Ryan this year.”

In addition to Richards, convention organizers trotted “A-List” Democrat Caroline Kennedy, who capitalized on her religious background to stump for Obama and abortion. “As a Catholic woman, I take reproductive health seriously, and today, it is under attack,” warned the former president's daughter. “This year alone, more than a dozen states have passed more than 40 restrictions on women’s access to reproductive health care. That’s not the kind of future I want for my daughters or your daughters. Now isn’t the time to roll back the rights we were winning when my father was president. Now is the time to move this country forward.” She added, “Barack Obama is the kind of leader my father wrote about in Profiles in Courage. He doesn’t just do what’s easy. He does what’s hard. He does what’s right.”

Pro-lifers have observed that it would be “hard” for all but the most calloused and self-serving to declare that it is “right” to add to the 40-plus-million death toll of babies murdered as a result of women's “right” to abortion. Kristen Day of Democrats for Life wondered how her party changed from one that supposedly stood up for the rights of society's most defenseless, into a facilitator of mass murder. “This is what the Democratic Party historically has fought for — the vulnerable, the needy, and the unborn,” she told syndicated columnist Debra Saunders.

While Democratic Party delegates were enthusiastically supportive of Richards, Kennedy, and their Planned Parenthood-induced abortion-at-any-cost mantra, there was at least one delegate they didn't want to hear from. Former Democratic member of the U.S. Congress Kathy Dahlkemper of Pennsylvania is committed to her party's “safety net” social spending, which is why she was voted out of office after her support of the Affordable Healthcare Act — ObamaCare. Nonetheless, she told Saunders that she is unequivocally pro-life “because I believe in the sanctity of life from conception to natural death.”

A Gallup poll last year found that only 38 percent of Democrats agree with their party's total abortion platform, meaning that a majority side with a view along the lines of Dahlkemper. “That puts the majority of Democrats on the wrong side of what the administration likes to call 'the war on women,'” said Saunders.